


Just Remember All The While

by orithea (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death, Post Reichenbach, The Empty House, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 04:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/630644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orithea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock tracks down the remaining members of Moriarty's operations. He knows that it's a terrible idea, but he can't help sending things to John while he's gone. Just to let him know that he is missed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Remember All The While

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by listening to the Jennifer Niceley cover of "You Belong To Me" and deciding it had possibilities as a story.
> 
> See the pyramids along the Nile  
> Watch the sunrise on a tropic isle  
> Just remember darlin' all the while  
> You belong to me
> 
> See the market place in Old Algiers  
> Send me photographs and souvenirs  
> Just remember when a dream appears  
> You belong to me
> 
> I'll be so alone without you  
> Maybe you'll be lonesome too, and blue
> 
> Fly the ocean in a silver plane  
> See the jungle when it's wet with rain  
> Just remember 'til you're home again  
> You belong to me
> 
> Fly the ocean in a silver plane  
> See the jungle when it's wet with rain  
> Just remember 'til you're home again  
> You belong to me

**  
**

John Watson no longer resides at 221b Baker Street. He has a studio flat now, not the same on that he had before though it might as well be. It’s dreary, grey, drab, and cramped. All of the things that his life seems to be now, now that—.

He no longer works at the surgery either. There was that business with the arrest for assaulting the Chief Constable that kept him tied up for some time immediately after—. Anyway, the whole matter didn’t take long, but he missed a shift and wasn’t able to pick up one for someone who came down with that flu that was going around. Sarah explained that he’s just too unreliable with picking up last moment shifts, that they need someone who can change plans at a moment’s notice. He understands. It gives him a few weeks to get things in order before he finds locum work elsewhere. Mike mentions a position looking for doctors with first hand experience in combat medic conditions, but it’s at Bart’s and John can’t—he can’t do that just yet. 

He hasn’t told anyone except Mike about his change in jobs, and not even he has the new address, so it’s a bit of a surprise the first time something comes in the post other than the adverts that immediately get tossed into the bin. It’s a postcard with just a photo of old buildings by the sea, a place he absolutely wouldn’t recognize if the word “Algeria” hadn’t been written on the side intended for messages. That’s all that it says, just ‘Algeria’ and John’s address. The handwriting looks—no. It doesn’t look like that.

He shrugs and tacks it up on his wall next to the bed because the picture is pretty. 

\--- 

After so many years of asking, bribing, Mycroft has finally found the means to get his way—the promise of John’s protection—and Sherlock has been conscripted into an MI6 mission of sorts (he thinks it might be a special side project that tested the limits of Mycroft’s influence just to get off the ground, but he doesn’t ask for specifics) to shut down the remainder of Jim Moriarty’s operations. His primary function is to gather information, naturally, and he can find things even faster than Mycroft’s best man, though only marginally so, he has to admit. The other man is more familiar with the equipment, and once Sherlock is more proficient with it himself there’s simply no one more suited for the job. He would prefer not to be involved at all, but recognizes that the sooner the Moriarty problem is taken care of, the sooner he can return to his normal life. The sooner he can apologize to John for what he has done—even Sherlock can recognize that it was not good, not at all, no matter how necessary.

Sherlock has a team devoted to the operation working out of London, while he goes into the field with one other agent who acts as his bodyguard. He hunts down the targets while the agent does the dirty work of subduing or disposing of them as necessary. Things move quickly in the beginning. The crime syndicate is at a loss without Jim for the first month, before Moran takes control and tightens up loose ends, and it’s easy enough to neutralize most of the major threats in England and the EU. Sherlock is even allowed to come back to London briefly before they move on to more difficult catches, as long as he stays low and doesn’t risk changing the public opinion that he is very much dead.

“But please, there’s just one more thing, one more miracle, Sherlock, for me, don’t be—dead. Would you do that just for me?”

Sherlock couldn’t help himself. He had been very careful—careful in ways that are foreign to him completely, he who is so used to senseless risk—not to do anything that could put John in danger. That includes visiting his own gravestone just to hear the man pour his heart out to it. Should include, but doesn’t.

And, well, what can be done? The game is not over yet, but perhaps John has done enough to convince them that Sherlock is truly dead, that he believes he’ll never come back. Which means that John is not in immediate danger any longer. 

So when he finds himself in Algeria following down one weakened thread of Moriarty’s vast web, he stops and buys a postcard. It’s generic, wouldn’t give away his precise location within the country, but it’s something to mark that he is here. He hands 5 dinar to the man who owns the little tourist stand, murmurs, “shokran”, as an afterthought, and tucks it into the inner pocket of his khaki jacket. It stays there safely through three days while there is work to be done, until Sherlock has wrapped things up and there is a chance to take it to the post office. He uses the address that Mycroft has given him and considers writing a message, but decides it might be best not to push this onto John too quickly.

In the Turks and Caicos he almost forgets to pick up something to send. He’s not fond of the tropics, has nearly got heatstroke from running around after the various members of Moriarty’s financial control unit who are still here, sunburn on every exposed inch of skin, and freckles in places he’s never seen them before on his own body. He is grateful that he at least cut his hair before coming here, because to have it sticking to his neck would have been unbearable. In the end he sends another generic postcard, but makes up for it by buying some rum cake in Grand Cayman, his next stop. He sends it through Mycroft’s people with a note that he’ll find out if it doesn’t make it to John. There are few simple pleasures left in life, so he won’t pass up an opportunity to torment his brother.

\---

It’s weeks before he gets the second postcard, so long that he’s almost forgotten about the first. This one has the location emblazoned on the front overtop a picture of pristine beaches with clear water lapping at the shore. The back is blank save for the address. Puzzled, he pulls out his phone to text Harry.

_Gone on a holiday?_

He gets a reply in just  few moments.

_Not since Scotland couple months ago!! Why???_

He doesn’t bother to text back. Not Harry, then, so who could be sending him postcards? He’d seen Mike, Greg, and Molly at the pub last week and none of them had said anything about going abroad. None of the rugby lads have his address, not that he’s really spoken to any of them in some time. He supposes it could be Mrs. Hudson, and fucking hell, he really doesn’t have many friends, does he?

John doesn’t start to feel suspicious until a few days later when he receives an actual package, rectangular, wrapped in plain brown kraft paper and tied with twine. The postmark says Cayman Islands, and even he can tell that it’s been opened somewhere along the way, probably by Customs. Curiosity gets the better of him, and he’s never been particularly cautious about opening strange things received in the post anyway, so he cuts the twine, tears off the paper, and is surprised to find a commercially packaged rum cake inside. Far from the possibly dangerous … something that he was expecting.

But who could have sent it to him? It’s the sort of thing that people pick up when they take trips to the islands—he’s had one before, actually, after his parents went on holiday and left him and Harry with an aunt when they were young. It was a consolation prize for not being allowed to go on the trip, and Harry ended up taking most of it before he got the chance to enjoy it as well. But John doesn’t know anyone, especially not anyone who would know how to find him now, who’s gone to the Caymans. He decides to ring Mrs. Hudson, remembering the postcard from a few days before.

It rings six times and John is just about to hang up, reassured that Mrs. Hudson must be off having a trip with Mrs. Turner or somesuch and just forgot to include a note, when the line connects.

“Hullo, terribly sorry, ” she answers, “the hip makes me a bit slow to reach the phone.”

“Hi, Mrs. Hudson, this is John calling.” Hastily he adds, “John Watson, that is.”

“I knew which John you meant, dear,” she chides. “Some time since I’ve heard from you, though.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just been difficult with...” he trails off and she clucks sympathetically.

“I know, I don’t blame you. What can I do for you?”

“Oh, I was just wondering if you’ve been on a holiday lately. I got a rum cake in the post today and whoever sent it from abroad forgot to put in a note.”

“I do love a good rum cake, but I’m afraid it wasn’t me,” she says.

“Hmm,”he says, trying not to let his concern show too strongly. “Guess the mystery continues.”

They chat for a while and she tells him to pop in for a visit, whenever he thinks he’s ready. It’s hard, he hasn’t set foot there in a long time, but he takes the cake round to Baker Street to share with her over a cuppa. 

\---

Sherlock knew that the final steps of the operation couldn't move as quickly as things did in the beginning, but he’s not entirely prepared for how long it actually takes now that the criminals have regrouped themselves and gone into hiding or on the run. The travel takes the most time. There is a quick succession of locales: Tokyo, Hong Kong, Lhasa, Prague, and Florence, where it takes the team less than 48 hours to conclude business in each. Sherlock finds something for John in each city despite the short stops, and mails them all together in one parcel once they reach Khartoum. He is almost sentimental about the lucky cat that he finds in Hong Kong, and hopes that John appreciates its meaning as well.

Their stop in Tehran takes longer than the others, investigation impeded by riots. He won’t admit it but the situation makes Sherlock nervous, and as soon as their business is done they move out of the region. He does not send John anything from here.

One of the snipers that Mycroft has identified—the one who had been set on Lestrade, he claims—has fled to Cairo in hopes to disappear amidst the chaos. It’s easy enough for Sherlock to blend in here—dark hair, tanned skin, and piercing light eyes aren’t too far out of place when combined with the right clothing and mannerisms, so he spends most of his days sitting outside cafés smoking and watching the crowd from behind his Arabic newspapers. The agent is more conspicuous. He goes by Sigerson; Sherlock pegs him as Norweigan through the slightest trace of an accent (most would not pick up on it, but Sherlock is not most), his height, and his paleness—he has not tanned at all over the course of their work and if anything his hair has become an even brighter blond. He is lucky that they are there during a time of chaos or he might have risked being noticed by their target, who has been smart enough to stay ahead of them this long. Unfortunately for the target, Sherlock grows restless and wearied of the hunt as it drags out over six weeks of dead ends and begins taking more creative measures than those Mycroft typically endorses.

It comes down to information purchased on the street again, damned useful in any country. He makes informants of some of the traders with their makeshift stands along the street, who see everyone and are hardly noticed in turn. A man who sells scarves by waving them aggressively at passersby is the one who gives him the tip, and he slips him a £50 note in thanks before heading for the tenement on the outskirts of the city where their target has been hiding, Sigerson in tow. They wait for the cover of night before moving in on him.

He knows that they are coming, is ready and waiting for them when they enter his building. It gives him the opportunity to catch Sigerson with a silenced SIG Sauer P226R—a gun model that Sherlock recognizes instantly even in the near dark—before they even know he’s waiting for them. Sherlock acts without thinking, throws himself onto the man and knocks the gun clear from his hands, then doesn’t bother to reach for his own weapon tucked into his waistband. The momentum knocks them both to the ground and Sherlock is on him, slamming his head against the ground and pulling his arm across his throat with all the strength that he can muster in his rage.

It takes longer than he anticipated, but the man finally goes still. Sigerson hasn’t moved since he was shot and Sherlock checks: no pulse, gone. He sinks down, pulls his mobile from his pocket and dials Mycroft.

“It’s done,” he tells him without preamble. “Your agent is down; I finished it.”

“We’ll take care of it,” Mycroft assures him. “Get somewhere safe and stay there until we send someone else to you.”

Sherlock’s hands are trembling. He has just killed a man, strangled him to death without a second thought. He wants nothing more than to have John here now, for John to tell him that it is okay. It hits him in a sudden rush in this moment, as he dusts himself off and leaves the scene, how much he had come to rely on his friend’s presence—how much he _misses_ him. He’s been strong, remarkably strong through it all, but he is exhausted and overwhelmed, and when he gets back to his hotel room he curls into himself and stares blankly at the wall. He wasn’t close to Sigerson, barely talked to him really, but he had grown used to his presence. Quiet and dependable, sure of himself in tricky sitatuions—he reminded him of John, an insufficient imitation.

_Alone is what I have_ , he thinks bitterly. Strange that until these past few months of his life he’s never before felt lonely. He is ready, more than ready, for it all to be done. Ready to go home.

\---

There is a second package, this time from Sudan. Definitely not the typical destination of anyone that John knows. He opens it carefully, sifts through the contents, and when he finds no note included he bins it all and tries to forget that it ever came.

He goes out to the pub that night with just Greg. There’s a football match on, usually good for a distraction and some small talk between them, but John is obviously having a worse time of it than usual.

“What’s wrong, John?” Greg asks, after a long stretch when his only responses to his questions have been perfunctory and make it clear that he’s barely listening.

“It’s nothing,” he responds instantly, but when Greg gives him a disbelieving look he decides to confess. “Well not nothing, actually. Someone’s having a go at me, messing with my head. Sending me things ... sending me things from all over, weird places. No note to tell me who it is. And it’s not just things, but it’s stuff—” he pictures the cat, the exact same one that they’d had in the flat, “it’s the kind of stuff that he would send me. If he weren’t dead.”

Greg listens to him and when he finally says something it is quiet, concerned. “But he is dead.”

“I know,” John responds sharply. “Believe me, no one knows better than I do. So it’s someone’s sick idea of a joke or something.”

“Do you think it’s one of the crazy fans, the ones who used to read the blogs?”

“It could be, but I’m not sure how. Whoever’s sending it knew us both, knew what his handwriting looked like, even.” He doesn’t want to give voice to his theory of who might be behind it. He was sure that he’d be left alone now; there’s nothing interesting about him to make him a target any longer.

Greg lets out a heavy sigh. “Listen, if you could use something to take your mind off it, I have this case that I could use a pair of eyes on, someone who’s seen—”

“No,” John interrupts him before he can explain. “No, I just—I can’t do that anymore.”

Greg nods and doesn’t ask again.

\---

There is one last real threat left now: Sebastian Moran. The rest are all small-time, can be wrapped up without Sherlock’s help and without any danger to anyone in his life. Mycroft's intelligence says that Moran is in India, somewhere in the forest regions of Manipur. Sherlock doubts this, because why would Jim Moriarty’s right hand be anywhere other than London, trying to hold the pieces of his collapsing empire together? They send him there despite his protests, new agent following along, and he spends a week tramping through jungles and remote villages looking for clues. In the end he is soaking wet, miserable, and has wasted valuable time.

Then suddenly he’s being woken up in the middle of the night and being told to grab what’s necessary and move, _now_. The new agent—he hasn’t bothered to learn his name, it’s so close to the end now—drives their jeep to the Imphal Airport and they’re herded into a sleek private plane that takes off as soon as they’re on board.

“What is it?” Sherlock demands for not the first time. He knows it must be important, but he needs details, needs to understand the urgency. 

“You were right,” the agent says brusquely. “He’s been in London this whole time.”

“Of course I was right,” Sherlock huffs. “But why the expediency?”

“They can’t actually pin down his exact location; he’s too well protected and moves around too often for that, so they need you. And there’s some new information …” he trails off, reluctant to tell him. 

“Well?”

“He’s more dangerous than our original assessments indicated. You see, Colonel Sebastian Moran was a trained sniper in the army, quite a good shot. He was the man set on John Watson in the original plan, and we have reason to believe that—”

“He knows that I’m alive,” Sherlock finishes for him.

\---

Next comes a postcard, another simple photographic one almost vintage in style, of the pyramids in Giza. This time there is a message on the back.

_I’ll be home soon._

John drops it as though it’s burned him and has to support himself with one hand against the wall until he can get himself to a chair and collapse into it. He flips out his mobile and does the one thing that he’s been reluctant to do in the five months since this mess began. He rings Mycroft Holmes.

“Hello, John,” he answers smoothly.

“Mycroft. I wouldn’t be calling, but there’s—” he pauses because he can’t think of a way to put it into words without sounding utterly mad. “I think that Moriarty is sending me things, I don’t know why he would but I ... I can’t think of anyone else who would be capable of it or want to.”

Mycroft has listened patiently. “That’s impossible,” he says when John is finished. “Moriarty is dead. I’ve seen the body myself.”

“What? When?”

“The same day.” He doesn’t have to explain what he means. “Suicide—shot through the head, on the roof.”

John is silent, stunned. 

“So then, why don’t you tell me the facts and we’ll see if we can figure this one out without pointing fingers dead men, shall we?”

“Someone’s sending me things. Little things, I don’t know why. But they’re the sort of things your brother might have bought if he were—” John pauses and swallows against the ache in his chest. “He might have bought them if he were trying to make an effort to be ordinary, the sort of person who sends his friends souvenirs, you know?”

“And what happened today to force you to call me?”

“It’s the first time there’s been a note. And it’s just ... it says ‘I’ll be home soon’ and it just looks so much like his handwriting, but that’s impossible, isn’t it? It couldn’t be from him, right, Mycroft?”

“Oh,” Mycroft sighs. “I did warn him about being sentimental.”

John hangs up and throws the phone as far away from himself as possible in disbelief.

\---

Sherlock starts desperately dialing John’s mobile as soon as they’re back in London, but he doesn’t pick up. He reminds himself that it’s probably because he’s working, busy with patients because it’s nearing the end of December and that’s typically when John complains about people coming in for every little winter-induced sniffle, but he’s not answering texts either. There is the other distinct possibility: that Moran got to him first. Sherlock doesn’t want to think about that, because thinking about John in danger is his weakness—makes him shake, stammer, and do stupid, irrational things. He can’t afford to be thrown off, not now.

He doesn’t actually have the address of the surgery where John works now, just knows that it’s in Kensington, so he heads for the flat instead. Sends the agent off with instructions to let Mycroft know where he’s gone. It’s on Craven Terrace, second floor, tiny and with a broken lift. He hopes that John’s limp hasn’t come back, that he’s not stubbornly climbing the steps to spite his leg. He reaches into his pocket for his tools with every intention of picking the lock and letting himself in, but decides to knock. Just in case.

There is audible proof that someone’s inside, moving, after he’s rapped gently at the door. Home, then. Not dead, just angry. Ignoring him, probably not going to let him in. But not dead, not in immediate danger just yet. That can be worked with.

John opens the door and the look on his face is like a jab in the solar plexus, breath rushing out in an instant at its impact. Anger, yes, but also pain, sadness.

“John, I—” the words spill out after he realizes he’s been staring.

“No,” John says, cutting him off. He slams the door in his face.

“You don’t understand, there’s—” he calls through the door.

“You were dead!” John shouts back at him.

“You may be in danger,” Sherlock tells him calmly. His voice is calm. His hands shake on the lock.

“You’re the one who’s in danger if you don’t leave me alone.” John stops, listens. “Are you picking the lock? Fucking—If you come in here I will make you wish you actually _were_ dead!”

And then the shot rings out just as Sherlock’s opened the door.

They’re both down on the ground in an instant, and he covers John’s body with his own, checking him frantically, desperately. There is blood on his hands.

\---

It was Moran.

“We suspected that he was here,” Mycroft explains, “but we also knew he wouldn’t fire until he saw a clear shot after you entered the building.”

“He wanted me to see it happen. He was waiting for me,” Sherlock says.

Mycroft nods. “You’re very lucky that we had a man in place.”

“Lucky,” John chuckles darkly. “Remind me how lucky I am tomorrow when this thing really starts to hurt.” His right arm is bandaged and held against his chest in a sling. The bullet just grazed him across the bicep, could have been much worse. He’s had much worse before—at least there are no bone fragments or serious chances of infection this time. Just what’s sure to be a lovely scar.

“I thought you were going back to headquarters,” Sherlock says to the agent, eyes narrowed. His name is Thompson, he suddenly remembers.

“You don’t think I just listen to your orders, do you? I had some orders of my own, let myself into the empty building across the street so I could stop him. Got there just in time, really. Could have been a much more accurate shot if I hadn’t distracted him.” Thompson grins. “Then the others were there to help subdue him. We’ve got him in custody now.”

“Thank you,” Sherlock murmurs. He is watching John.

\---

They’ve been left alone in John’s flat after the important business is moved to New Scotland Yard and Mycroft’s center of operations. It is the first time that they’ve had an opportunity to speak, and instead they are both sitting on John’s bed with a careful divide of distance between them, staring at the bullet hole in the wall.

“Why did you send me those things?” John asks at last. 

“I wanted you to know that I missed you.”

“Wanted me to think that I was going completely nuts, more like,” he says weakly, then adds, “I did too.”

There is a long silence while they both study each other. Sherlock looks older, less boyish, with his hair cut short and face sun-darkened and weary. John has become tired and grey, more like he was when they first met than just before he left. It makes Sherlock’s chest ache to know that it is his fault.

“It was just to protect you,” he tells him, finally. “You had to believe.”

“I did believe. I believed you were real, and I believed that you jumped, and I didn’t know _why_ , how you could do something like that.”

“They were going to kill you. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“I’m sure there was another way.”

“Will you be moving back?” he asks after another silence.

“Not—” John’s breath catches in his throat. “—not just yet, I … I don’t think that I can, yet. But I will.”

Sherlock nods. He has waited, has learned patience in these last long months.


End file.
